Richard Torrey was born in Los Angeles, CA. where he began doodling as soon as he could hold a crayon.

In third grade, Richard showed a picture of a horse he had drawn to the legendary comic strip creator, Charles Schulz. Schulz drew Snoopy on the back of the picture, inspiring Richard to follow a similar career path.

After graduating from Allegheny College with a BA in Psychology, Torrey created the first of two successful syndicated comic strips; Hartland (King Features), followed by the sports strip, PETE and CLETE (Creators Syndicate). Both features appeared in hundreds of newspapers around the world.

Since then, Richard has been an author, illustrator, and editorial cartoonist. His list of clients includes Highlights Magazine, KidCity (a Sesame Street publication), The National, and Inside Sports. For the better part of two decades, he has also been the creator of a top-selling line of greeting cards for Recycled Paper Greetings Inc.

More recently, Richard’s interests have turned to children’s books. He has written and illustrated seven books, including the popular Beans Baker series for Random House, and the three book series: ALMOST, WHY?, and BECAUSE, for HarperCollins. He has also illustrated dozens of books for Simon & Schuster, Golden Books, McGraw-Hill, and Scholastic.

The son of Hockey Hall-of-Famer, Bill Torrey, Richard lives in Long Island, New York, with his wife and two children.